Advances in Internet and wireless technologies have triggered an exponential upsurge in the amount of content that is available to wireless devices. Different content types, such as video, audio, and webpage, pose different demands for quality of service (QOS). In addition, with the explosion of video traffic, wireless service providers are faced with the challenge of effectively managing exponential growth in data traffic.
Link-translating proxy servers are known to be used to enable anonymous browsing, policy circumvention, and WebVPN functions. An example of a link-translating proxy server is described in “A Robust Link-Translating Proxy Server Mirroring the Whole Web,” by Ziqing Mao and Cormac Herley, SAC '10 Mar. 22-26, 2010, Sierre, Switzerland, which is incorporated by reference herein. This technique is an address-bar-only proxy technique because the address bar of a browser is used to direct traffic through the proxy server.
In order to support wireless devices, a proxy server, such as a link-translating proxy server (LTPS), can be located in the data path of a wireless service provider network. This ensures that any traffic that passes from a wireless device through the wireless service provider network can be affected by the proxy server. One drawback to this scenario is that the proxy server is exclusively within the control domain of the wireless service provider network. Another drawback with this approach is that the proxy server will be bypassed when a wireless device communicates through a local wireless hotspot, e.g., a WiFi or WiMax hotspot, which provides wireless access to the Internet but is not within the control domain of the wireless service provider network.
In another configuration, a proxy server can be located outside of the control domain of the wireless service provider network. In this configuration, the internal proxy settings of each wireless device are typically configured by the user to direct the desired communications to the proxy server. Changing the internal proxy settings of a wireless device takes know-how on the part of the wireless device user and can be such an inconvenience that it discourages use of a proxy server. Additionally, some wireless device operating systems and/or wireless device browsers do not allow a user to change the proxy settings. Additionally, in some corporate environments, traffic is forced to go through a corporate proxy, thus making it difficult to add a second proxy in the data path since the proxy settings are already consumed by the corporate proxy.